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Rachel Haot's Social Links

Profile

A lifelong New Yorker, Rachel Haot is an American businesswoman and entrepreneur who currently serves as the Chief Digital Officer and Deputy Secretary of Technology for New York State under Governor Cuomo’s administration.

As the Chief Digital Officer and Deputy Secretary of Technology, Haot is responsible for developing products, programs and policies that modernize New York and connect the government and tech community. Since joining the State administration in January 2014, she has led the first overhaul of the official website NY.gov since 1998.

Prior to this, Haot was the first-ever Chief Digital Officer for the City of New York for three years under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, from January 2011 to December 2013, where she led NYC Digital. Some of her major projects include overhauling the City website, NYC.gov, leading the .NYC top-level domain, overseeing the tech sector campaign We Are Made in NY and Reinvent Payphones challenge that was the precursor to universal municipal Wi-Fi in NYC.

Before working for the city and state governments, Haot was the founder and CEO of GroundReport, one of the first global citizen journalism platforms from 2006 to 2010. She also previously ran the digital consultancy Upward and taught at the Columbia Business School as an adjunct professor.

Haot is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and she was named Chief Digital Officer of the Year in 2014 by the CDO Summit.

Haot was born in Manhattan and grew up in Park Slope, Brooklyn and Dobbs Ferry, New York. She graduated magna cum laude from New York University in 2005 with a degree in History.

She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband, Maxime Haot, and son.

Companies and Investments

GroundReport (founder, former CEO), World Economic Forum Young Global Leader

Lessons Learned

- Focus on getting enough sleep.

- It’s incredibly hard to succeed as an entrepreneur. I had come to the end of funding I had for GroundReport and figure out what I was going to do in a pretty short period of time. What helped me make the decision to transition was that there would be another opportunity for me to do more.

- Get your footing and learn from the people around you and do a large amount of research going into any new job.

- If you take too long to make a decision, someone else will make it for you. If you have a tendency to overthink things and weigh the options, everyone else is making the moves. Don’t lose your windows for opportunities. Be decisive when need be.

- Learn to look three moves ahead. What will the response be? Where will this end up? That way you’ll never be surprised by the outcome.

Inspiring Quotes

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She embodies everything that is happening in the technology industry. This is a city that was very successful in the 20th century using top-down, 20th century business practices to achieve a great deal of its wealth and power and its infrastructure is very much 20th century.

Rachel Haot's Quotes

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It’s obvious, but [you want to] add value wherever you are, in life [or] in work. As long as you’re adding value, I think you’re putting yourself in a good position and you’re putting your organization in a good position. As long as you focus on contributing, anticipating where you can add value, just taking responsibility without having to be asked, thats it.

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—[[:Category:It’s obvious, but [you want to] add value wherever you are, in life [or] in work. As long as yo...|Rachel Haot]]

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At the most basic level, it’s making sure citizens looking for information can find it and that they can be connected to the services and the support that they need.

With social media, you’re engaging in these one-to-one interactions in public, and it starts to create a public record of whats happening. Especially when compared to traditional modes of communication, theres an enormous amount of cost savings and return on investment for the amount of time put in.

[[Category:It’s obvious, but [you want to] add value wherever you are, in life [or] in work. As long as yo...|It’s obvious, but [you want to] add value wherever you are, in life [or] in work. As long as you’re adding value, I think you’re putting yourself in a good position and you’re putting your organization in a good position. As long as you focus on contributing, anticipating where you can add value, just taking responsibility without having to be asked, thats it.]]